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About Gary Galo

Gary Galo retired in 2014 after 38 years as Audio Engineer at The Crane School of Music, SUNY at Potsdam, NY. Since then he has worked as a volunteer in the Crane Recording Archive, transferring vintage Crane recordings to digital. He is the author of over 300 articles and reviews in over a dozen publications, and has been writing for audioXpress and its predecessors since the early 1980s. Gary is a long-time active member of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, a frequent presenter at ARSC conferences and the author of numerous articles and reviews in the ARSC Journal. He is a member of the Boston Audio Society and a Life Member of the Audio Engineering Society.

All items written by Gary Galo

You can DIY! Build an Audio Dummy Load

May 25, 2023 by Gary Galo

You can DIY! Build an Audio Dummy Load

An audio load is an essential piece of test equipment for any audio electronics workshop. Having created the very popular Heathkit ID-5252, more than 35 years ago, Gary Galo decided to design a new option for everyone to build now. The ID-5252 contains four 8Ω, 60W power resistors. The biggest limitation of the Heathkit load is power handling. Series and parallel combinations can be used to produce various resistances and power levels — up to 240W at 8Ω, using all four resistors. But, simultaneously testing both channels of a high-powered amplifier requires two ID-5252 units. Fortunately, the raw parts for building an audio load are easy to find.

Fresh From the Bench: Sumiko Phono Cartridges and RS78 78 rpm Stylus

November 2, 2022 by Gary Galo

Fresh From the Bench: Sumiko Phono Cartridges and RS78 78 rpm Stylus

Longstanding audioXpress author Gary Galo reviews the latest Sumiko Olympia and Wellfleet phono cartridges, and RS78 78 rpm stylus. The new RS78 is Sumiko's first 78 rpm solution, meeting the needs of many vintage recording enthusiasts and can be installed on many of the brand's cartridges. In this review, Gary discusses the merits of these versatile and high-quality cartridges while exploring his personal collection of 78 rpm recordings. This article was originally published in audioXpress, October 2022.

The Complete Linear Audio Library on USB

December 8, 2021 by Gary Galo

The Complete Linear Audio Library on USB

Linear Audio, the bookzine created in 2010 by Jan Didden, is now available on a USB with The Complete Linear Audio Library. We asked three Linear Audio and audioXpress authors - Gary Galo, Bob Cordell, and Dimitri Danyuk - to review it and share their thoughts. Important to know, the USB drive doesn't contain only the PDFs of published articles. It also ads additional articles by Jan Didden and others, together with materials of historical interest.

Fresh From the Bench: GeerFab Audio D.BOB Digital Breakout Box

November 3, 2020 by Gary Galo

Fresh From the Bench: GeerFab Audio D.BOB Digital Breakout Box

Gary Galo reviews GeerFab Audio’s D.BOB Digital Breakout Box, a valuable new solution for all the music enthusiasts who would like to listen to their Super-Audio CD (SACD) music collection by feeding the DSD datastream via HDMI from the player to an outboard digital-to-analog converter (DAC) in high-resolution audio. And GeerFab Audio created the first device that delivers! This article was originally published in audioXpress, October 2020.

Recording Review: Taking a Listen to Sound Liaison’s DXD Music Sampler

August 19, 2020 by Gary Galo

Recording Review: Taking a Listen to Sound Liaison’s DXD Music Sampler

Gary Galo offers a detailed review of Sound Liaison, a small audiophile label based in The Netherlands, with a unique catalog of high-resolution recordings, building “a bridge (liaison) between the studio (engineer and musicians) and the people who love to listen to beautiful music using high quality audio equipment.” A very detailed and enjoyable review that will get you reaching for the label's music. This article was originally published in audioXpress, August 2020.

Fresh From the Bench: Benchmark HPA4 Headphone/Line Amplifier

January 29, 2020 by Gary Galo

Fresh From the Bench: Benchmark HPA4 Headphone/Line Amplifier

Gary Galo reviews the Benchmark HPA4, a reference headphone/line amplifier designed to deliver amplification of analog sources for audio enthusiasts, mixing and mastering engineers. Resulting from Benchmark’s collaboration with THX, the HPA4 features a THX-888 headphone amplifier for an output signal with high voltage, current, and and power complemented by low distortion, noise, and crosstalk. This article was published in audioXpress, November 2019.

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AES 2019 New York Expanded Audio Builders Workshop Program

November 7, 2019 by Gary Galo

AES 2019 New York Expanded Audio Builders Workshop Program

The Audio Builders Workshop offered an expanded program at the 2019 convention of the Audio Engineering Society, held at the Javits Convention Center in New York City, October 16-19. The culmination of this year's program was a three-hour Build Clinic on the last day of the convention. Owen Curtin and Chris Kincaid ran this session, and attendance far exceeded their expectations. There were more than 40 participants, and each person was required to purchase a kit for the session, which they assembled onsite. Participants were given a choice of three kits, depending on their level of experience - the L2A Passive Preamp, the ABW Metronome, or the S-25 microphone.

Fresh From the Bench: KanexPro HAECOAX HDMI Audio De-Embedder

October 31, 2019 by Gary Galo

Fresh From the Bench: KanexPro HAECOAX HDMI Audio De-Embedder

This review explains the merits of the KanexPro HAECOAX, an HDMI audio de-embedder, which extracts the PCM datastream from your players HDMI output and feeds the datastream to an S/PDIF output at the disc’s full resolution. Gary Galo discovered the device some time ago, enabling him to extract digital high-resolution audio sources from HDMI signals. This article was originally published in audioXpress, July 2016.

Disc Recording Equalization Demystified

October 22, 2019 by Gary Galo

Disc Recording Equalization Demystified

This article explains the methods of cutting disc records, the characteristics of magnetic phono cartridges, and how their combined response determines the required playback equalization. The article is based on a paper the author presented at the May 1996 conference of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) in Kansas City, and was first published in the Fall 1996 issue of the ARSC Journal. Later, the article was featured as part of "The LP Is Back!" compilation book published in 1999 by The Audio Amateur company.

A Transformer-Coupled Balanced Output for Solid-State Preamps

July 10, 2019 by Gary Galo

A Transformer-Coupled Balanced Output for Solid-State Preamps

Longtime audioXpress contributor Gary Galo writes about a transformer-coupled balanced output circuit for solid-state preamps, usable with line-level signals. Exploring the differences between balanced interfaces and unbalanced interfaces - and finding things that we really want to be aware of, he then explains why he selected Jensen transformers for his own project. This article was originally published in AudioXpress, February 2019.

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